The Final Test
by Sara's Shadow
Summary: ONESHOT  Gippal's experience during the events of Crimson Spheres 4-6 leading up to the ill-fated Operation Mi'ihen.  Slight Baralai/Paine mentioned.


What was Maester Kinoc thinking when he sent the Crimson Squad candidates in here?

After the adrenaline of excitement wore off, Gippal knew that it was a mistake coming inside of the Den of Woe. He and his fellow teammates ran through the cave, looking for weapons, as Nooj was the only one that was given one.

"_Obtaining a weapon for yourself will be part of this test," Maester Kinoc said._

Where were they supposed to get weapons from a supposedly abandoned cave that they were suppose to investigate because of strange happenings inside? Gippal was having second thoughts about this test. Something as important as this should have been given to seasoned Crimson Squad members and not trainees.

Right?

Terrified screams started to echo throughout the cave, causing the group to stop. The screams were followed closely by gunshots. Gunshot sounds of official Crimson Squad issued weapons which were followed by pained screams of men dying.

"_Those who return here alive will become formal members of the Crimson Squad,"_ _the Maester said._

Is that what he meant? The team that survived this massacre by killing the other trainees would become part of the Crimson Squad?

Gippal wasn't sure if he wanted to be a part of this anymore.

A strangled scream echoed near the group, jolting them all out of shock. Nooj took point, since he was still the only one with a weapon. Baralai stood near Paine, who was nearly paralyzed with terror, as if he was going to protect her from whatever was out there.

"Let's move," Nooj commanded quietly.

Automatically, the group moved closer towards where they heard the screams. Baralai kept watch behind them, to make sure nobody tried to sneak up on them.

They found a small clearing of sorts, and they all froze.

Gippal tried not to let the horror of this discovery cross his face, but from the looks on his partner's faces and the slipping of the camera from Paine's hands he knew that he was also failing miserably. Pyrflies floated around them, creating a chilly feeling of death around them, but he was already shuddering hard enough from fear that the cold was not bothering him.

Other trainees were laying in pools of their own blood, which was mixing with the rocks and sand that made up the floor of the cave. Debris from the surrounding rocks lay in small piles around the area where stray bullets had struck; making it look like the shooter had no particular target.

It was difficult to stop staring, but Gippal forced himself to look away from the dead men. He didn't want to be in the cave anymore.

"Hey, guys, I have a great plan. Let's get out of here!" Gippal said, trying not to let his voice shake.

Everyone silently agreed, but another echo of a scream echoed, and it sounded very close. Baralai spotted a gun lying in a dead man's limp fingers and moved for it. Gippal watched, and shuddered as he recognized the dead man as the guy that was standing next to him while they were waiting to get into the cave. Gippal shook the feeling away as now was not the time to mourn the dead.

The screams came again and Nooj shouted, "Let's go!"

The group ran down a tunnel and came upon a more terrifying scene. Two men were fighting open air and screaming with terror, their guns forgotten in their hands.

"No, d-don't!" the furthest man shouted in fear.

The second man froze and growled before aiming his gun at the man in front of him and immediately shooting him. He walked over the now dead man and started shooting everywhere.

Gippal was glad that the shooter hadn't realized that they were standing behind him he staggered a step back and asked, "Why are they killing each other?" before collapsing onto the ground.

"It's happened to everyone?" Baralai asked, looking around.

"It's really dangerous indeed," Nooj agreed.

Paine pointed off into the darkness and Gippal followed her line of sight and spotted what she must've been pointing at. There was a large skull looking face that looked to be made out of metal. There was only one thing that it could be.

Gippal turned and looked at the horror on Paine's and shouted, "That's what's causing it? Get out!"

"No one passes until we make sure!" Nooj said, looking around for any unwanted guests.

Baralai threw his gun to ground, "Count me out! I don't want part in a group whose members kill each other!"

At the edge of the tunnel, more men appeared, screaming in much the same way as the other possessed men did and then turned on each other and started to shoot. Both men were dead before they hit the ground.

Nooj passed his gun to Gippal, pulling him up from the ground in the process and then walked over to where the dead men lay. He bent down and grabbed one of the guns and then turned back to Baralai.

"Fine," he said, before he turned and kept walking.

Gippal knew they'd be sitting ducks if they didn't keep moving. He looked at Baralai and Paine before turning back to Nooj.

"Wait!" Gippal shouted and ran after him. He felt that the ex-Crusader must've know what he was doing.

Paine looked at Baralai, who was staring after Gippal and Nooj. Baralai bent down and picked the gun back up and then quickly moved after them. Paine followed, trying to hold the camera as still as possible which was difficult because she was shaking so bad.

The group came upon clearing where two more men were screaming and taking aim at each other, and then they watched them die much the same way, but then something different happened. The pyrflies started to gather together, creating some form of apparition in front of them. Nooj started walking towards it.

Gippal had a bad feeling about it and ran towards Nooj and the apparition to try and stop him, but then pyrflies shot from the apparition and straight into Nooj, causing Gippal to stop in his tracks.

"Nooj!" Gippal shouted.

Baralai and Gippal ran to Nooj, who had staggered back a few steps from the shock and immediately tried to figure out what happened. Nooj then doubled over, painfully gulping for air. Then he silently straightened up and looked at Baralai with darkened eyes. Gippal watched as Baralai gasped and stepped back as Nooj pointed his gun into Baralai's face.

Baralai started breathing heavily and fell to his knees staring straight down the barrel of the gun. Gippal fearfully raised his own gun up and pointed it at the side of Nooj's head.

"Put the gun down!" Gippal growled, desperately hoping that Nooj would listen.

Then Gippal started hearing a voice in his head telling him to just pull the trigger, that it would be the only way to save Baralai, because Nooj wasn't going to put the gun down. Gippal ignored it, not wanting to shoot one of his own friends. The voice was persistent and getting louder and louder and Gippal was finding it hard to ignore. It was like someone else was trying to take his body over.

Gippal was too focused on Nooj to notice that Baralai's eyes had darkened and he silkily stood up and lifted his gun to aim at Gippal's head, completing a triangle.

"You put your gun down," he said smoothly.

Gippal fighting a battle; the voice was telling him to shoot, and he was trying to save his friends. The voice kept telling him that they weren't his friends and he should shoot them to save himself. The scary part was that he was almost starting to believe the voice.

Gippal looked at Nooj's face and he recognized the fear and the internal battle going on inside. Looking out of the corner of his eye he could see the same look on Baralai's face. Gippal started to hyperventilate. What was he doing? He was sixteen for Spria's sake. He wanted to save the world from Sin's destruction and here he was inside a cave pointing a gun at a friend's head while another friend pointed a gun at his own head. Where was the glory in this fight?

Gippal let out a scream of terror and frustration, and vaguely noted that Baralai and Nooj were screaming as well. He just wanted it all to stop!

"Stop it!" screamed Paine.

Gippal felt something snap inside of his and he stopped screaming, and realized that Nooj and Baralai stopped as well. He looked at their faces and saw that their eyes were back to normal. Gippal slowly started to lower his gun, and Nooj and Baralai followed suit.

"Can we leave now, guys?" Gippal asked again, staring at the ground as the silence of death surrounded them.

"The pyrflies are causing the disturbances in here," Baralai said firmly.

Nooj nodded and said, "Let's go."

The group turned in the direction of where they came from and started running as fast as their group could go, ignoring the dead men that littered their path back to the entrance. Gippal almost cried with joy when he saw daylight pouring in from the entrance. They exited the cave and started to gulp in air.

There were met with the stoic face of the training officer. He didn't look pleased or unhappy to see them, but Gippal didn't care because he was outside of that cave and away from whatever was in there.

"What did you see?" asked the training officer.

"As soon-as soon as we went in-" Baralai started, still trying to catch his breath.

"They became violent: everyone. It must've been the pyrflies!" Nooj continued.

"They swarmed around us too. So many pyrflies," Baralai finished with a haunted look on his face.

Gippal took a gulp of air and said, "We sat it. That-that apparition!"

"Start making sense!" demanded the officer.

"It was a machina. An enormous machina. It trembled and growled, like a beast," Baralai said.

"I've never seen anything like it!" Gippal jumped.

"When I saw the apparition, it got inside me, it made me feel fear, regret, despair," Nooj said, recalling the experience with fear.

"Same here," Baralai agreed, "I can't explain why, but I felt so sad."

"Yeah. It was like somebody's raw emotions just came out of nowhere and hijacked my brain," Gippal tried to explain.

"Somebody? Somebody who?" the officer probed with frustration.

Gippal looked at Baralai and Nooj, and saw them looked around with confusion as well. He didn't know who, and they definitely didn't know who. But there was definitely somebody down there, somebody preserved in the pyrflies. Gippal remembered hearing stories from his mother about the farplane, and how people used to go there to see the memories of their loved ones who have died. Gippal wondered if maybe both places were the same thing.

The training officer grunted and asked, "It that all?"

Nobody answered him so he shook his head and said, "Return to the command centre at once and protect the maester until the operation has been completed. That is your first mission as Crimson Squad members."

Gippal stared in shock. He couldn't believe it! Baralai interrupted his thoughts as he asked, "What, we passed?"

"Congratulations," was the short reply.

Gippal couldn't help it. He started to laugh. It was part way between shock and disbelief. Baralai joined in, laughing as well, obviously forgetting about refusing to be a part of an organization that shoots its own people. Nooj was stonily silent, but Gippal didn't think anything of it.

"All right!" Gippal said as he and Baralai clapped each others back.

"We did it," Baralai said,words dripping with disbelief.

"Yeah we did!" Gippal said as he walked away, ready to go and protect the maester.

Gippal didn't notice that the other guards had lifted their weapons and taken point as he walked by with Nooj and Baralai. He was so used to trusting his friends after all of their training programs that when Paine's voice broke through his excitement, he didn't hesitate.

"Run. Run!" she shouted in fear.

Gippal gasped and grabbed Baralai's sleeve and jumped to the side, hiding behind a rock. He looked up to see that Nooj had done the same.

"Quiet!" the training officer said to Paine as the guards started firing on Gippal, Nooj and Baralai. They quickly moved from their hiding spots and started to run, like Paine told them to do.

Gippal didn't stop running until the gunshots behind stopped. He didn't stop until he reached the beach of the Moonflow.

Until the sky grew bright as an explosion engulfed Mushroon Rock Road.

Gippal didn't notice that Nooj had grabbed both his and Baralai's sleeves and started to drag them into the bushes and push them to the ground. His cheeks felt wet and it took him a moment to realize that it was because he was crying. Baralai stared off into the distance, muttering Paine's name over and over.

How did things go so wrong?


End file.
